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Springer eBooks

Photon Scattering from Atoms in an Atom Interferometer: Coherence Lost and Regained

David E. Pritchard, Michael Chapman, Troy D. Hammond, Alan Lenef, Richard A. Rubenstein, Jörg Schmiedmayer, Edward T. Smith

Published Jan 1, 1996• 3 citations
Publisher
DOI
10.1007/978-1-4757-9742-8_18

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Here, interference visibility in a three-grating atom interferometer with presence of photon-atom scattering events is analyzed. The model considered is entirely based on the atom wave function and the effects caused on it by both scattering events and subsequent diffractions through the interferometer gratings. A functional dependence of the interference visibility on the probability distribution of transferred momentum (by the photons) to the atoms is thus found, which is used to interpret the available experimental data. Within this model there is no need, therefore, to appeal for concepts such as “which-way” information or entanglement to explain the losses, revivals and regains of quantum coherence in this type of experiments. Rather, visibility losses and revivals are explained in terms of the sudden change induced in the atomic wave function by the momentum transfer, while regains are directly related to the visibility functional dependence on the statistical distribution of transferred momentum of the sample of atoms selected after passing through the interferometer (before they are detected).
Atom interferometers are powerful tools for the study of fundamental issues in quantum mechanics. This paper describes the use of our atom interferometer [1] for an experimental realization of Feynman's gedanken experiment in which the observation of photons scattered off of particles emerging from a double slit is used to obtain which path information. This determination, in principal, of the particle's path, destroys any interference effects downstream. The interference can be regained by observing only those particles which scatter a photon into a small range of final directions.